Posted
by
samzenpus
on Wednesday February 15, 2012 @03:48PM
from the a-vaccine-neigh-keeps-the-doctor-away dept.

phantomfive writes "In a study of Connecticut pediatricians published last year, some 30% of 133 doctors said they had asked a family to leave their practice for vaccine refusal. Pediatricians are getting tired of families avoiding vaccines, which puts their children at higher risk of disease. From the article: 'Pediatricians fed up with parents who refuse to vaccinate their children out of concern it can cause autism or other problems increasingly are "firing" such families from their practices, raising questions about a doctor's responsibility to these patients.
Medical associations don't recommend such patient bans, but the practice appears to be growing, according to vaccine researchers.'"

Don't like my medical advice? Fine, go somewhere else. Seems perfectly reasonable and rational. If I were these doctors, I wouldn't want to feel responsible for the health of a child whose parents were demonstrably not interested in keeping their child healthy.

When talking about the wealth of doctors, you need to take into account FAR more than raw salary.

1) Medical school typically results in a few hundred thousand dollars of debt incurred, ON TOP of whatever debt the doctor may have incurred during their undergraduate program2) Undergraduate debt does not begin to get paid off during medical school - instead, debt increases (see 1) )3) After graduating medical school, a doctor must atcomplete residency (I believe this is typically a MINIMUM of 3 years) before they can practice. The typical salary for a medical resident (based on looking at the info packets for one of the local family medicine residency programs in my area) is well below the salary for an entry level engineer straight out of undergraduate school. (e.g. an engineer makes a higher salary four years earlier - note the time value of money here.). This is despite the fact that the resident has four more years of school during which they were racking up debt4) Once the doctor finally finishes residency, they have to pay for malpractice insurance. This is a MAJOR cost driver for doctors.

4) is a major kicker here - Permitting a patient who has refused vaccination to spend time in the waiting room endangers other patients who cannot be vaccinated for whatever reason (such as immunocompromised patients) - opening up the doors for malpractice suits from those patients.

PRIVATE PRACTICE, a tv show about a complementary medical practice in L.A. had an episode about a family of 'non-vaccinators' who returned from a trip overseas (India or Malaysia) with one of their kids very sick. The family sat in the waiting room for 5 minutes as the sick child eventually convulsed and died from measles. The pediatrician in the practice had delivered both of the kids and knew the mom didn't believe to vaccinations. The mom was in full-grief denial mode as only a sudden death can do. Meanwhile the staff is jump around canceling all the appointments for the next 48 hours and contacting all the patients that were in that day to make sure they and their kids were up-to-date for measles vaccine. The big issue of that show was that the mom didn't want to vaccinate the remaining child even though there was a very strong chance he would come down with Measles and it might kill him. Meanwhile these people are carriers and should have been quarantined. Why the LA Health department didn't swoop in and take over is beyond me, but I didn't write the show. The moral issue of the show was "when are the parent's beliefs about what's right for their child get overridden by what's medically advised. In the case of blood transfusion and 7th Day Adventists and other religious cults, the courts will intervene. In this case, the doctor risked their medical license by forcibly vaccinating the remaining child against the mom's wishes. If that case ever came to court, I wonder what a jury would do. The California AMA would probably award the doctor a medal for averting a cluster outbreak of measles.
In any case, not having these kinds of patients in your medical practice makes life a lot easier. It's also why lots of doctors don't accept Medicare patients if they don't have to. Billing is a major headache.

In the case of blood transfusion and 7th Day Adventists and other religious cults, the courts will intervene.

*Citation needed*
I was raised SDA in Australia, and lived in SDA communities in Cali, strangely enough one centered around Loma Linda University Medical Centre, a very highly regarded hospital. You can bet that everyone in that community got their shots, it was a prerequisite for going to Loma Linda Academy, run by the SDA church.
There may be some fringe SDA families who are against modern medicine, but it's very much not a feature of core SDA values. Health is a core value of the SDA church, by which they mean exercise, eating good food (many SDAs are vegetarian, or eat meat very sparingly), and generally staying healthy. No prohibitions against medicine at all, in fact the SDA church runs a string of hospitals around the world, and they all strive to have the best modern medicine available.

Influenza kills half a million people per year. Since influenza mutates like crazy, it is also constantly developing new strains that require new vaccines, and occasionally strains that are particularly deadly (like the one in 1918, which killed up to a hundred million).

The flu is dangerous. You get influenza, and you can die,. Please explain to me how that isn't dangerous?

while a percentage would die from other things, it's tiny percentage.

No, to say the 500 people died from gun shot means 500 people died from gun shots. You can't say 'oh well, they might have died from something else.' Because you don't know. we DO know the 10's of thousands of people die from influenza in the us, 500K worldwide.

First of all it's the CDC, not the WHO, so you're talking about deaths in a population of 0.3 billion Americans, not the 7 billion world population (never mind that in 1976 at the start of the study the world population was 4 billion and the US population was closer to 0.2 billion).

Second of all, those deaths are ALREADY per year, so you shouldn't be dividing any further:

CDC estimates that from the 1976-1977 season to the 2006-2007 flu season, flu-associated deaths ranged from a low of about 3,000 to a high of about 49,000 people.

That's at a minimum one 9/11 attack per year, and at a maximum the depopulation of a small city. And that's regular, people-on-the-internet-can-mock-it flu, not pandemic flu.

The 1918 H1N1 epidemic killed 650,000 Americans out of a population of about 100 million (north of 0.5%!), with a 20% mortality rate for those infected.

It also killed more humans worldwide in 9 months (50-100 million) than the Black Death did in 20 years, being the deadliest epidemic in human history.

Actually quite a few do have trouble, and are most definitely NOT rich. You see, the ones doing the vaccinations would be family practice doctors, or pediatricians, neither of which earn those giant salaries, which are reserved for brain surgeons, heads of surgical centers, and the like. This is the giant myth of our health care system, that doctors and practitioners are raping us all, it isn't the insurance companies, really.....

And to throw some reality at the 1% part, to qualify by most methods as being in the 1% of wage earners, you must make between 503,000$ and 536,000$. The average family practitioner makes$204,000, according to several sources. This puts them a pretty far distance from 1% territory. The highest salary reported in a recent survey for a family practitioner was $299,000. They aren't all struggling, by any means, but still not 1%. Pediatricians, by comparison, reported salaries between$125,000 and $231,000, with the average at $174,000. They make even less.

These figures also only take into account those doctors who make a salary, as opposed to those who may be in private practice, and living on the profits from their business. They usually make much less.

In an anecdotal vein, my next door neighboor and his wife are both doctors. He is a pediatrician and she works in ER. He's been working at a private practice for 4 years and I'm not sure about her, but she's about the same age. They drive modest cars and have 2 children. The house is probably 2000 sq ft which is big but is not a McMansion. They each pay a 'mortgage' for their school loans and still have that to look forward to for another 10-15 years. So, sure they make good money, but there is a big cost to making that kind of money and it takes quite a while to net any kind of wealth. They also keep really long hours and question their career decisions from a family point-of-view. I, as a software developer, am much farther ahead than they are because I did not have 8 years of school to pay off and was able to start making money while they were still in school racking up debt.

So they made an investment in their education, expecting it would pay off in the long run. And this is not uncommon to doctors. So put your anonymous mask down and stop spewing half truths to make yourself feel victimized.

And besides, comparing a doctor to a community college adjunct professor is just ignorant.

It arguably goes further than that: Depending on the nature of your practice, you might have patients who are dependent on herd immunity(immunocompromized, vaccine component allergy, etc, etc.) Would a doctor be responsible in keeping people who are voluntary infection risks around the rest of their patients?

If it were merely a matter of not taking good advice, I'd be a trifle ambivalent, certainly legal; but seems a bit tasteless. However, the infection risk makes it more like firing a medical assistant who won't wash their hands: it isn't just their health they are risking...

I find it ironic that one of the groups that are dependent on herd immunity (Vaccine Component Allergy) is one of the ones that said doctor will kick out of his practice. My son is highly allergic to eggs, which is in many vaccines. We were informed by our doctor that if we did not allow him to inject our son with something that he is highly allergic to we would no longer be allowed to be a part of his practice.

It isn't that we don't want our son to be immunized, it is just we would rather not give him something that results in violent reactions. Especially at the young age that he is.

I doubt the doctors in question would throw you out, if the allergy is legitimate. You are not the kind of people being referred to, it's the completely retarded anti-vaccers who are the target of this. It is they who are putting your child at risk. Have a complaint, take it up with the evil fucking monster Andrew Wakefield.

Sorry, but I question the accuracy of any quote that involves a doctor requiring that they knowingly inject a vaccine into someone known to be allergic to that vaccine. No doctor would ever require that their patients submit to being killed. So I have no reason to believe the rest of the story.

It seems quite likely to me that many parents make claims of allergies when they really just fear vaccines but don't want to tell their doctor that. Or, in this situation, maybe the doctor's office wasn't actually aware of the allergy, and the parents are tacking on a bit of hyperbole to their story.

Your case is a little different. You have a valid, medical reason for not being able to have your son get all his vaccines. The autism-vaccine link has been shown to be non-existent. Thus, that is not a valid, medical reason for refusing vaccinations. A doctor should only be able to "fire" patients that don't have a medical reason.

Don't delay for too long - as the proportion of vaccines that contains thiomersal decreases (something it's been doing for a decade now), the number of reported cases of ASDs has increased! That mercury was clearly keeping autism at bay!

Are you saying the doctor would risk an anaphylactic shock after you told him your son is allergic to eggs? Bullshit.He'll either select a vaccine that's made without eggs or one that is known not to cause an allergic reaction in egg protein sensitive patients.Again, bullshit. Just like all the other antivaxxers.

Are you saying the doctor would risk an anaphylactic shock after you told him your son is allergic to eggs?

Sure. Everything has a risk -- death is a potential risk of almost any medical treatment -- but the risks are usually far outweighed by the significant potential benefits. You risk death during almost any surgery, but the risk is so small in healthy individuals that it shouldn't be a deciding factor.

Also, some vaccines, like the flu vaccine, are only made with eggs. Fortunately, the amount of egg protein present in the vaccine is so small that reactions are very rare. Typically it means waiting around for 30-60 minutes after vaccination to look for signs of a reaction, which can then be treated before it escalates. The odds of having a reaction that's unresponsive to treatment are so staggeringly small that no one should use it as a deciding factor (with the disclaimer that this is not medical advice).

I find it ironic that one of the groups that are dependent on herd immunity (Vaccine Component Allergy) is one of the ones that said doctor will kick out of his practice. My son is highly allergic to eggs, which is in many vaccines. We were informed by our doctor that if we did not allow him to inject our son with something that he is highly allergic to we would no longer be allowed to be a part of his practice.

It isn't that we don't want our son to be immunized, it is just we would rather not give him something that results in violent reactions. Especially at the young age that he is.

Our son is as well. The allergist gives him his shots under a controlled and measured process.

How old is your son? My son is also highly allergic to eggs (we have to carry the epi pen everwhere we go), and he's had all his age-scheduled shots so far with no problem, and he's almost 2. Which ones does your son need that don't have a non-egg version?

Generally I would agree, but it depends on where is the line drawn? I have never gotten a flu shot. Is that enough to turn me away?

The other concerning part is only in TFA though about a child who had a preexisting condition that was exacerbated by vaccines, and was still refused by several doctors without even discussing the issue.

No, of course not. Any doctor will tell you that flu shots are only moderately effective anyway, and of course have to be given every year based on guesses as to the season's strains. The slippery slope argument is the sort of FUD that is feeding the anti-vaccine kooks...

These are pediatricians, so they are more worried about things like MMR, DTaP, meningiococcus, etc. Vaccines that don't just reduce the chance of a moderately annoying winter bug, but have unquestionably saved the lives of millions of children worldwide since their invention.

And from TFA: "Her older child had gastrointestinal trouble and regressed development after receiving vaccines, she said, which she believes were related to the shots." This is the same "proof" by anecdote people wrongly use in the autism argument. Sure, one doctor signed a waiver, but same thing with painkiller addiction, it only takes one doctor willing to sign a prescription, they just have to look hard enough (or be a celebrity and no one will ask)...

The biggest joke of it all is this: Even of vaccines do cause the things people guess that they might, you're still better off getting vaccinated.

With Autism rates up around the 5.5 in 1,000 range (that's under half a percentage), even if every single autism case is caused by vaccines, you're still better off getting vaccinated and taking a tiny chance of autism over order-of-magnitude greater odds of dying in an epidemic when once hits your area thanks to the loss of herd immunity that generally keeps us protected.

This ignores the fact that autism rates for those who are vs are not vaccinated seem to work out to be the same, and that no study has actually managed to link vaccines with autism.

Because there exist people that can't get vaccinated for various reasons, such as allergy or compromised immune system. Every person that buys into the anti-vaccine propaganda bullshit and doesn't have their children vaccinated weakens herd immunity. This means that the people with no other protection but herd immunity are being compromised by utter stupidity.

Ask most people that could have their children vaccinated but chose not to: "Would you allow your child to travel to a place where there is no herd immunity without vaccinating them first?" I have (I have several extended family members who are anti-vaccination fools) and almost every time they respond "Hell, no!" A few even wear their hypocrisy like a badge of honor..."I refuse to put my children through any risk of complication whatsoever since I know everyone else will risk their own children and my child will be safe anyway." They fully realize how herd immunity works, and that it's a shared risk, but they totally don't give a shit and are perfectly happy being selfish little fuckwits.

It's ridiculous how ignorant people are of history that we're going to end up having to suffer another major epidemic to squash this stupid anti-vaccination bullshit.

why should I take even the tiny risk of having a vaccination to protect some idiot who refuses to get vaccinated themselves?

Simple - some people are unable to be vaccinated due to perfectly valid medical issues. They still benefit from herd immunity as long as the herd actually has it.

One person might be highly allergic to eggs and might not be able to get some particular vaccine as a result. However, if everybody around them isn't allergic to eggs wouldn't it be nice if they were vaccinated, thus greatly reducing the chance that any of them will get sick?

Some medical issues really do involve a tragedy of the commons. One is vaccination. Another big one is antibiotic use.

What about HepB? given at birth? 1 month? 2 months? Are you spreading those over 3-4 times that recommendation?

What about RotV? Both currently licensed version (Rotarix and Rotateq) are live virus in an oral suspension. The old "proven" one was discontinued in 1999 (apparently seemed to cause higher instances of intussusception), the CDC estimated that 500,000 infants die around the world each year from RotV.

What about DTaP? It's a mixed (only the "P" part is acellular) They recommend 5 doses of this puppy. Are you gonna stretch that one out 3-4x or take the old verisons seperatly? Because when you get older they usually use recommend a totally different one. Gonna test a new experimental vaccinee schedule on you kid?

What about Hib and PCV? They are generally polysac+protein vaccine (no live viri), but they recommend 4 does, up to age 1, are you going to stretch that out to age 4? or age 8 given separatly?

What about IPV? It's inactivated, and it's old, but who gets polo?

See the problem? It's easy to toss some platitude like "I'm not gonna give my kid any new vaccines" and "I'm gonna spread them out", but when you dig into the details, you see that many of the vaccinnes are necessary in short intervals bacause the baby's immune response is so weak and the recommended vaccines already either well tested, or manufactured using more modern (cellular/protein response oriented) techiques.

Also, If you spread them out even 2x, which of these terrible diseases are you willing to risk? I'm not doing this to ridicule anyone's position on vaccines, but after you look at the problem (since I've done this recently), you realize it really isn't about educated risk at all, it's about realizing that developing a new drug protocol or vaccine schedule for your own kid using your own limited knowledge is not probably a prudent thing to do, when the standard protocol has been well studied and has documented (but non-zero) risk. Should my child be a clinical trial of 1?

Part of wisdom is recognizing what you don't know. I really don't know this stuff at all, nor do I really know the reputations of any of the sources of data, so any calculations that I do with any accumulated data is likely garbage-in, garbage-out. I'm really just forced to apply occam's razor to the problem. Do I believe there is a global conspiracy concerning giving vaccines to infants and covering up all the negative evidence, or do I believe that the general good of vaccines is illustrated in the preponderance of the evidence and the existance of a National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program for the small percentage of infants that have side effects. Applying this principle, the general good of vaccines seems a simpler explanation, and often simpler is more likely correct. That was enough for me. Your milage may vary.

Yes, this is an important point that not much has been made of in the comments so far. There are people who cannot be vaccinated or in whom the vaccine will not produce the desired immunity. So long as these people don't come in to contact with the disease they'll be fine, but if you don't want to get your child immunised and send them to school with some poor kid with a crappy immune system or on chemo or something then you might end up killing them too.

Are there schools that ban unvaccinated children from attending? I think that'd be a more effective way than kicking them out off the doctors list.

I think what the parent post meant is that all vaccines have some percent of people who don't have the desired antibody response, so you want to keep the unvaccinated numbers as low as possible in order to protect them. There are also the populations of very young/very old/immune compromised who can't be vaccinated. It's these groups most at risk from the willful vaccine refusers.

On one hand, I think parents should be able to chose what is best for their children. Doctors and the medical community have been wrong before, and while I doubt that is the case here, I don't think parents should be forced to submit to whatever the doctor says.

On the other hand, parents are making decisions which are very likely not in their childs best interest, which isn't fair to the kid (and arguably, not fair to other kids/people/society in general in this case).

I'm not a parent or a doctor, so at least my opinion on this is largely irrelevant.

A doctor's responsibility is to all of their patients. Parents who are not vaccinating their children are not just risking their children. These children may be brought into close proximity to patients that cannot be vaccinated (very young) or whose immunity has worn off (the very old). As such it puts more than themselves at risk.

What the fuck? "they're causing many narcolepsy cases" - [citation needed] to the max. I don't even know of any mechanism by which a vaccine could have anything to do with narcolepsy.

Then you go and revise history. It was a pandemic, even though not everybody got sick (pandemic has a specific definition that was met). And it was on par with the average flu in terms of mortality, but it was affecting the young and able-bodied disproportionately - a characteristic it shared with the 1918 flu epidemic, which was also an H1N1 strain. Young and able-bodied are both more resistant to infection in the first place, and more capable of spreading it, so there was absolutely cause for alarm.

It was probably overhyped (mostly by the media) but it was not "many kids getting their lives ruined". From what I can find, one person died from an anaphylactic reaction, but that says more about the environment in which they were vaccinated because we know how to treat anaphylaxis. About 30 people had temporary problems possibly resulting from the vaccine, but they all recovered.

Doctors aren't always right (like anybody in any profession), but this isn't about the doctors themselves. It's about the science.

And the scientific evidence has shown time and time again that there is no link between vaccinations and autism, and that the benefits of eradicating these types of diseases far outweigh the potential mild side effects of taking them.

As such, I have no problem with the idea of doctors who practice said science turning away patients who want to be in denial about it.

Do you have any idea how many children and others were killed by these virulent diseases? To put this in perspective, before vaccinations the list of top ten killers in this country was entirely populated by diseases which today have vaccinations. That same list today is comprised of heart disease and cancer instead of measles and mumps. These diseases kill, and when they don't kill they maim severely, or sterilize, or blind, or like polio make you paraplegic including freezing your lungs so that you have to spend the rest of your life in an Iron lung or you die.

Of course there is a higher mortality, some of the side effects of vaccinations are death. You CAN get real polio from the vaccine. But the odds of a side effect or getting the actual disease are incredibly small, in the range of 1 in a million or billion. But the odds of catastrophic results from not getting the vaccine are FAR higher. With all these vaccination avoiders there is going to be an pandemic some day and all those people who didn't vaccinate their kids are going to be burying them. Almost every one of these childhood vaccinations are diseases that kill adults that get the disease. We've already had several major outbreaks of measles that have killed a significant number of people, I vaguely recall one in a nearby state that killed nearly 700 people. If the CDC and state health officials hadn't quarantined people it probably would have went pandemic. Herd immunity is gone at this point, if you are relying on it to protect your kid you have no idea how many people are refusing vaccines.

I think vaccine deniers are dangerous fools, and I wish I were religious if only for the comfort of believing in a Hell waiting to accept "Dr." Wakefield.But before we jump on this particular bandwagon, perhaps we ought to ask:

Can a doctor "fire" a patient for continuing to smoke?For continuing to drink? How are we defining "drink?"For continuing to overeat?For continuing to eat lots of red meat? Fried food? Salt?For not being on the caveman diet?

If pharmacists are allowed to refuse to dispense birth control based on their convictions, and churches can refuse to cover it due to their convictions, doctors should be allowed to refuse to treat idiots based on their convictions. Welcome to the free market, bitches.

Well, this isn't exactly the same as a Catholic pharmacist refusing to fill birth control scrips because the man in the sky said sex is bad. The doctors are making this decision based on solid scientific evidence, not some blind faith in something that can't be proven. Vaccines save lives. Un-vaccinated people are a risk to those with compromised/under developed immune systems. Those are facts and parents that refuse to accept them are welcome to find a free love, herbal pediatrician that will make them feel good while taking their money.

I love it when these parents say "well my kid has no vaccines and has never gotten ". Yeah no shit Sherlock, it's because the rest of us are not spreading it around thanks to our vaccines. The day there's a new strain that flies around killing the un-vaccinated they'll say "Why didn't someone do something or warn us?!?"

Maybe it's the difference between the US and Europe, but here in Europe, not all doctors recommend all available vaccines. I wouldn't trust my doctor if he would recommend that I (or my children) get a vaccine against flue for example.

I try to avoid drugs as much as possible because I think most non-severe illness (headache, flue, etc...) can just be cured by getting some rest and trusting your body. From my experience, the people I know that take the most drugs are the ones that are the most ill (and I'm talking non-server illness here, of course I'd take drugs if I had a cancer). I don't now if there is a causality, but I would tend to think so.

So yeah, I have kind of the same approach to vaccination : I take vaccine for sever illness, but I would never vaccine against flue before I'm 90 years old.

Now, I've lived in the US for some time and I've been shocked by the amount of drugs people take everytime they feel somewhat bad. I think there is a middleground between the "listen to your body, it will cure cancer by itself" bullshit and the "omg, I have a headache, let's eat these 3 pills". Same for vaccine.

Maybe it's the difference between the US and Europe, but here in Europe, not all doctors recommend all available vaccines. I wouldn't trust my doctor if he would recommend that I (or my children) get a vaccine against flue for example.

If your doctor recommended a flu shot, he/she thinks you're in an at-risk group. Influenza is not a harmless infection, it kills 250,000 to 500,000 people in a typical (non-pandemic) year.

Now, I've lived in the US for some time and I've been shocked by the amount of drugs people take everytime they feel somewhat bad. I think there is a middleground between the "listen to your body, it will cure cancer by itself" bullshit and the "omg, I have a headache, let's eat these 3 pills". Same for vaccine.

A flu vaccine isn't like antibiotics or painkillers or anti-depressants or other drugs that may be harmful is needlessly prescribed. A vaccine introduces your immune system to a foreign element, which it then remembers so, if introduced to it again (in a live virus), it will be able to attack it more immediately. Getting a flu vaccine needlessly isn't going to weaken you or cause you to be more likely to be sick.

Has any study yet been done on autism rates in the unvaccinated children of antivaxers?

Note that by "antivaxer" I mean those concerned about long-discredited hoaxes that claimed vaccines might have certain side effects which we now know they do not. There are other groups who don't vaccinate for other reasons, like the Amish, and some of them do indeed show lower autism rates. But AFAIK, in all known cases of such groups, there are far too many other variables in play to simply infer that these low rates are due to lack of vaccinations: they lead lives so different from the "typical" American public that any number of factors could be contributing, and that needs to be accounted for.

Vaccine refusal for standard childhood vaccines could be considered child neglect.

There are parents who don't want their children to have the chicken pox vaccine and then expose them to chicken pox. [theatlantic.com] That's child abuse. The vaccine is far lower risk than actually getting the disease.

If somebody doesn't trust vaccines, why are they going to a doctor in the first place?

The sound science behind vaccinations is by and large the same sound science that doctor is going to be using when he diagnoses you and prescribes a treatment. You can't reject one without rejecting the other.

I think people today are generally spoiled by good customer service at large retailers like Amazon or Best Buy, where the business writes off 1-2% of asshole customers who consume most of the customer support resources as the cost of doing business.

The problem is, that doesn't extend to small businesses, where one bad customer can quite literally eat up a majority of the proprietor's time and energy, and the business doesn't have the depth to just send the customer free stuff to make them happy. Had that happen with a scout troop I volunteer for a couple times, where one obnoxious parent consumed hundred of hours of volunteer time before they were told to leave.

If I were a physician, I'd certainly trade one marginal (in the economic sense) customer for the freedom from losing sleep at night about whether their child is dying from one of any number of untreatable disastrous diseases. If my patients are going to argue with me about whether vaccines are, in fact, the greatest medical development for humanity in the past two centuries, how on earth am I supposed to be able to get them to consent to any other medical science?

anti-vax morons
"Boys who did not receive the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine during the mid 1990s are now collecting in large numbers in secondary schools and colleges and this provides a perfect breeding ground for the virus"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100330082722.htm [sciencedaily.com]

If a doctor recommends a vaccine for a child, and the parents refuse the vaccine, then the child catches the flu and dies. Guess what? The doctor is open to litigation. It is a sad state of affairs, but the end result of that lawsuit is probably either settlement out-of-court or a judgment against the doctor. After all, why didn't the doctor educate the parents how they were wrong about autism risks? Why didn't the doctor show studies to the parents so they could have made a more educated decision? The fault will not be on the parents' heads -- at the very least the doctor will have to pay an attorney to defend from the inevitable lawsuit.

Why should a doctor saddle up with 1) Patients that refuse care and 2) Legal risk. If I were a family physician and I had people putting themselves or dependents at risk against my medical advice (A.M.A.), I would "fire" them, too. In the end, we aren't talking about emergency care here. We are talking about medical maintenance, and they can find someone else.

My family doctor will give new patients 6 months to stop smoking or he refers them elsewhere. His line is that his job is to keep patients healthy and that he can't do that if they are smoking. These are caretakers, and they will inevitably come to care about their patients. If they wanted to make money, they would have gone into a specialized field.

I love my endocrinologist. I have diabetes and she's superbly competent at helping me manage it.

However, her initial speech to patients is fairly straightforward.

"We'll discuss alternatives and your specific circumstances. Then I'll tell you what to do. You'll do it. I'll know if you do what I tell you because you'll bring in your meter and I'll download all the info in it at every checkup. I'll do the blood work. I'll know if you're following my directions. If you don't follow my directions, you won't have to worry about disappointing me. You'll just have to find a new endocrinologist because I'll fire you as my patient."

I appreciated the straightforwardness. I think some patients would be mighty put off but that's why some doctors and some patients are a bad mix and should go their separate ways.

They tend to "know better what is right for my child" on manyother issues. Their children come in sicker than others becauseof the herbal remedies they try first and fail. "I thoughtI'd clear up the pneumonia with elderberry extract"

It's not that simple. Research is showing a correlation to the large number of vaccines as a child and autism. We don't know for sure.

Horseshit.

The doctor who made that claim has been shown [msn.com] as [cnn.com] being [bmj.com] fraudulent [physorg.com].

There is simply no reputable evidence to believe this. But it's still propagated by people who refuse to accept that the evidence was fabricated -- but now that people believe it, you can't get rid of it.

The unfortunate thing is the kid doesn't and really can't have any say in it.

Once your an adult.. fine.. wanna refuse chemo because you've discovered the healing power of celery colonics, it's your health! The poor kid is at the mercy of the parents, and while the idea of the authorities dictating how a child is raised makes me very uncomfortable.. that's almost what I'd like to see.

On a side note, I agree that it's the doctors' right to see what patients they want (as long as the decision is not based on certain criteria like race/color/religion/gender/etc). Stupidity is not a protected group.

It's also arguable that the antivaxxers are goddamn assholes, and I believe it's perfectly acceptable to refuse service to those you find to be goddamn assholes.

The doctor is a highly trained expert providing a service. When faced with people who refuse to acknowledge that expertise (whether it's refusing vaccines or blood transfusions or whatever) I think they're perfectly within their rights to say "you're a pushy asshole, and if you won't let me do my job properly then GTFO."

I do not think you are the target problem group here. I assume you are talking about an egg albumen allergy, since most vaccines are made that way, with a few made in horse serum.

I have an albumen allergy in my gene pool, so we were very cautious about vaccinating my children. Thankfully it appears they do not have the allergy. That said, I do not like the vaccine regimen used in the US, where we combine many different vaccines into one shot MMR, DTaP|DTP so I opted out of the traditional vaccination program. I discussed this at length with the pediatrician, and gave my reasoning for it (too much to hit a young immune system at once with, etc.). In the end, while it means more shots, she agreed, and my kids received their vaccines over a prolonged period. Their reactions were almost non existent, whereas with normal shots a high fever is common, as is other flu like symptoms for a couple days.

As to those who do not get vaccines for no good reason (parent, has a good reason) all I have to say is this:If you accept *every single case* of something bad that happened to a child that *anyone* attributed to a vaccine (Autism, severe reaction causing brain damage, death, etc.) at face value and compare that to the infant and childhood mortality prior to these vaccines being widely available it is still beneficial from a risk perspective to get your children vaccinated. If you remove just the obvious nutjob correlations of vaccine related issues then the risk to reward ratio is so big that the bad stuff is lost in sampling noise.-nB

On a side note, I agree that it's the doctors' right to see what patients they want (as long as the decision is not based on certain criteria like race/color/religion/gender/etc). Stupidity is not a protected group.

No less, it's reasonable for a doctor to be able to refuse to treat a patient who continuously refuses treatment. At that point, the doctor is simply saying, well, if you don't want me to treat you, then I won't treat you.

The problem is a thorny one of liability and ethics. Being forced by law to take responsibility for a patient that specifically refuses to take your medical advice is not a solution.

I have had (dental) patients in the past who give me a list of requirements on their first visit - no x-rays, no fluoride, no amalgam, etc. Those patients are gently shown the door. I may not necessarily disagree with their reasoning but the trust necessary for an effective doctor-patient clearly does not exist from the start.

And who knows what cockamamie lawsuits they'll file? I've actually had patients insinuate that they will sue if treatment doesn't happen exactly as they expect. Buh bye.

I think it's more of a Doctor desire to not work with idiots, and to instead save room in the schedule for the parents actually concerned with their kids' health.

There are free vaccine clinics EVERYWHERE due to the fact that there are WAY more than enough vaccines to go around. My family has even used them a number of times. I'm sure the doctors are not concerned with the $10-15 per shot they would get since there are easy ways to vaccinate your kids and not have to pay it anyway.

And that's why US children no longer get a smallpox or polio vaccine. When the disease has been eradicated, we don't vaccinate against it anymore. However, the stuff we're still vaccinating for is still kicking, and that's why we still vaccinate for it!

Perhaps, they think this will help convince the family that the vaccines really are important. They're choosing to make this choice in face of losing long-term profits. That points to a deliberate ethical decision, and not grubbing after a $40 fee.

It can also be deadly. A friend of mine gave me the Chicken Pox which, within 2 weeks, lead to bacterial endocarditis, spinal meningitis, pneumonia and Reye's syndrome. Note that the US didn't start using the Chicken Pox vaccine until 1995; it hit me in the 1970's. Fortunately my parents found the doctors I needed and I'm alive today.

I wonder how many children die every year because their parents don't want to get them vacinated.

As someone who HAD the chickenpox as an adult, I ended up in the hospital with lesions on my lungs and most of my mucosal tissue. I had them under my eyelids, on the bottoms of my feet, under my toe nails -- in fact, there was just one place I did *NOT* have them -- and for that I am eternally grateful.

Actually, while I was sick with them (106 fever), I saw on the news the NEW Chickenpox vaccine announced. I threw my shoe at the TV.

"Adults have the greatest risk for dying from chickenpox, with infants having the next highest risk. Males (both boys and men) have a higher risk for a severe case of chickenpox than females. Children who catch chickenpox from family members are likely to have a more severe case than if they caught it outside the home. The older the child, the higher the risk for a more severe case...."
http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/chickenpox/possible-complications.html [nytimes.com]

Parents refusing vaccines are misinformed. Doctors are asking parents to do something to save their children's lives and protect their other patients and the parents refuse. I'd tell them not to come back too.

My mom is a nurse, and her best friend was paralyzed from the flu shot. How's that instead of a @#$@ three days of down time?

And for every person paralyzed by the flu shot a greater number have been saved by it. No one is saying vaccines don't have risks, but that the benefits outweigh those risks. There's a reason we look at statistics instead of anecdotes.

My mom is a nurse, and her best friend was paralyzed from the flu shot. How's that instead of a @#$@ three days of down time?

A friend of mine in junior high school was killed during a baseball game. He pitched the ball, the batter hit it back, he got hit in the temple, he lapsed into a coma and died. Clearly, this means that baseball is an extremely dangerous sport and should be banned entirely.

Either that or my friend had a one in a million event happen and the entertainment benefits of baseball outweigh the tiny risk. Just as the health benefits of vaccination vastly outweigh the tiny risk.

Let's make it a law because after all we wouldn't want people to believe they own their OWN bodies, and actually have the temerity to say what does or does not go into it.

Yes. I want this. I want to live in a society where people are forced to give up this bullshit "freedom" to refuse vaccines. I'll vote for that all day long. If you don't like it then I don't want you living in my society. Go somewhere else.
Assuming we have vaccines that are scientifically vetted and tested I'd be happy to live in a society where vaccination is mandatory.
Maybe you think my opinion is strong but THE FUCKING IDIOTS WHO REFUSE TO VACCINATE THEIR CHILDREN ARE MAKING THE WORLD LESS SAFE FOR EVERYONE ELSE. They're the selfish bastards...

I.E. if someone else was to get sick via a non-vaccinated person then in theory they were also NOT vaccinated. Hence they only people suffering would be those who chose not to get the shot.

You're a fucking idiot. You don't understand "herd immunity".
Infants can't be vaccinated immediately, but they're susceptible to disease. Some people have health problems that prevent them from being vaccinated. Sometimes the vaccines just don't work.
When the vast majority of people (the "herd") are vaccinated then enough immunity exists to prevent the disease from gaining a foothold and spreading. As soon as there are enough people who aren't vaccinated herd immunity breaks down and the world becomes unsafe for infants, those who cannot be vaccinated, or the unlucky few who the vaccine doesn't work on.
If my child died as a result of a preventable disease that they contracted while too young to be vaccinated and I found out they were infected by an the child of an anti-vax nutjob I think I'd have little choice but to kill the anti-vax parents. I'm quite sure I'd have a hard time staying my hand. People who are that anti-social and selfish don't deserve to live.

If my child died as a result of a preventable disease that they contracted while too young to be vaccinated and I found out they were infected by an the child of an anti-vax nutjob I think I'd have little choice but to kill the anti-vax parents. I'm quite sure I'd have a hard time staying my hand.

Wholeheartedly agree with the above

People who are that anti-social and selfish don't deserve to live.

I just felt a shudder in the Force as millions of slashdotters were suddenly silenced

Yes there is. IN this case, people are bring in non vaccinated children into a population of sick children,. It is a high risk of illness to all there other patients, and society.I'm sure of a child showed up in need of immediate emergency care, they would get it.

If hundreds of studies that there is no negative affect in a test group receiving 27+ vaccines vs the control group who receives none, then yes you are an imbecile. And the doctor's argument becomes moot when you can get the vaccines from a free clinic.

On the contrary, the doctor has avoided harm to his other patients. Every new born baby or person with a weakened immune system is at risk from the preventable infections his unvaccinated patients bring into his clinic.

A person who thinks a vaccine causes autism is liable to start blaming their doctor for whatever other ailments crop up in their kids life. Which is only no big deal if you don't have a family yourself or reputation.

If they're making an offer that cannot be refused without an adverse threat, such as this one, it's not voluntary

What is this, The Godfather? What "adverse threat" (i.e., harm) is the doctor putting on the patient? And is that any greater or lesser than the threat the patient is putting on themselves. Pediatricians aren't putting severed horse heads in their anti-vax patients' beds. They are simply ending a relationship that is a liability to their practice, and trying to send a forceful message to their patients that they are (in the doctor's opinion) making a big mistake. If the pediatrician hasn't been able to persuade the parent that vaccines are a good idea and that Jenny McCarthy is a moron, then it is probably for the best for both parties to go their separate ways. It is not like patients are without options: "firing" is not a universal practice, nor one endorsed by the profession as a whole; there are always other doctors, and probably some more sympathetic to their vaccine concerns. We aren't talking about acute cases, either: if an emergency shows up, the doctor will still care for them.

This is not an uncommon thing among professionals: here is my advice, take it or leave it, but if you leave it, don't expect me to clean up your stupidity.

I'm not so sure about that. The problem with this behavior is that it creates a sizable market of very, very stupid parents who have trouble finding reputable doctors willing to care for their children. Please don't make me explain the varied and sundry ways a market like that could be prayed upon; one might be able to argue that parents in that situation would deserve what they get, but their children certainly don't.